"Cuddly Paddington featured in a selection of 4 adventures — super fun to rub-down onto situation background scenes. 4 titles available."
(Thomas Salter trade catalogue, 1981)
Although they were originally printed in gravure as GK238 in 1976, the four Paddington Transfer Tales sets were soon reprinted in litho — probably later the same year. But as the following two scans show, the gravure-printed versions were available both with & without the background scenes. The same thing happened with Doodles, which were often obtainable as either "Fun Doodles" (no background) or "Storytime Doodles" (with background). Here, the sheets without backgrounds were just called "rub-down transfers", & the card suggested "simply rub-down onto paper, plastic, pottery, glass and card".
So if you come across a vase decorated with a picture of Mr. Gruber using a magnifying glass — you'll know what happened.
You can easily see that the reprinted transfer sheets used the same artwork, but rearranged on the sheet. Above: GK238/2; below: L55/2. Note that the gravure sheet has the title "Paddington the Painter", although the card says "Paddington's Masterpiece"!
Picture Credit: The SPLAT Scan Archives, with thanks to Andy Hyatt
© Tom Vinelott 2018